The Perfect Midi Guitar

[maxxslipknot]

isnt she beautiful, ima have to phone thesee guys and ask them if the strings are simulated like real strings because most of of these guitars have one shot string sensors, this+sonar4P=heaven...maybe..synful orchestra VST

[maxxslipknot]

the funny knob looking thing atop the strings is actually a joystick much like the ps2/controller for menu-ing thru the onboard computer

Edited June 30, 2005 by maxxslipknot

[GregP]

It is velocity-sensitive, I know that much. I've heard somebody playing piano with it as well as some orchestral instruments. With Synful that could be quite interesting.

To me, it's still not the 'perfect' MIDI guitar, though. The perfect MIDI guitar won't happen until it's an actual guitar that's able to track efficiently and send the correct messages... like a guitar synth-to-MIDI thing that can be installed on a real guitar.

Greg

[monkey69962000]

Yahmaha right?

Sharper Image selles them. I dont like them. Buy a real guitar for the same price.

If not, sharper image sells the same guitar but for yahmaha. you can not play blues what so ever. I can not do the bends like i want to and i can not play ZZ Top solos because no flase harmonics.

Edited June 30, 2005 by monkey69962000

[GregP]

monkey, I think you'll find that the reason people buy those is to NOT sound like a guitar. Sheesh.

Greg

[Bigtommyb]

i would get one to do midi tracks personally! lol i hate using those keyboards as im not a pianist im a guitarist!

T

[maxxslipknot]

1.actually is not yamaha its from starrlabs, and theyre really expensive.

2. yes greg people buy them for synth use but you might want to have control over sustain as you do with guitar strings instead of having a trigger string sensor which isnt as flexible I imagine.

"The Z6-S (shown above) mounts six StringTriggers, velocity-sensing strings of any type or guage. A new optical pickup system, advanced preamp, and processing algorithm contribute to our fastest, most sensitive and reliable triggering system ever."

I suppose that if what senses the strings are optical elements then the note holds untill the string stops vibrating and with the computer it can probably set to work either way

http://www.starrlabs.com/ztars.html

[maxxslipknot]

2850.00$, just found out

[Gorecki]

Reminds me of the Casio I have stuffed in the closet. Them's all ugly POS's!

For now, I'll stick to my 13 pin midi guitar pickup systems. The thing most often misrepresented with midi triggering is that it's not that it's not tracking well enough, it's attempting to track too much! What I mean primarily is pitch bend controller messages. Just plucking a string will create, huge amounts of sharp'd (out of tune) gradiants of a note that are sent as pitch bend events...tons of them, problem is they change so rapidly, most midi driven sounds don't handle it gracefully. So a guitar player attempts to be ginger with played notes to improve tracking which results in less pitch bend events...and seemingly better tracking.

Anywho.

Edited June 30, 2005 by Gorecki

[Myka Guitars]

The response I have from my clients is that they get into MIDI because they want to sound like a guitar with different voices. That means false harmonics, pick scratches, etc. The piezo hexaphonic setups (13 pin) running to a pitch to MIDI converter seem to be the best so far.

The Roland type guitar synths are also very good but they are not MIDI. As long as you just want a guitar synth (and the tonal modeling) and not MIDI output these are superior in my opinion. You can also build a really nice guitar and have all your gear on the floor or in a rack where it belongs.

Just my .03 cents.

[GregP]

I've yet to encounter a guitar library that will respond to information generated by false harmonics or any sort of nuanced playing. Most of the time audio-to-MIDI you have to be very careful to play monophonically and you're lucky to find a library that has decent normal notes, never mind bent, slid, pinched, or even vibratoed notes. I can't help but feel that your clients are barking up the wrong tree, David. If they're looking for a way to sound like another guitar, MIDI itself (never mind the audio-to-MIDI conversion) isn't up to the task without extensive hand-tweaking offline.

The guitar synths are not MIDI, as you indicate. It seems to me that you can add an extra component, though, no? Taking the information from the synth and converting it to MIDI? Sort of like the audio-to-MIDI thing, but synth-to-MIDI instead.

I'd be curious to know which audio-to-MIDI converters they're using, though, because I know a bunch of people who would be curious to get their hands on something that works fairly well.

Greg

[maxxslipknot]

it can recieve pedals for bends, pitch shift and alot more, this isnt your yamaha crap.

[Saber]

The Roland type guitar synths are also very good but they are not MIDI. As long as you just want a guitar synth (and the tonal modeling) and not MIDI output these are superior in my opinion.

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Edited June 30, 2005 by Saber

[jnewman]

it can recieve pedals for bends, pitch shift and alot more, this isnt your yamaha crap.

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[Primal]

That thing reminds me a lot of the Segway. Really fancy electronics with a lot of engineering, but ultimately a really expensive piece of useless crap .

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[lovekraft]

Then why not just play a midi keyboard that can also do that?

Well, how good are your keyboard chops? Most of us play guitar, not keyboards. Why do so many people feel so threatened by a guitar controller? Heck, Bela Fleck even has a MIDI banjo!

FWIW, Harvey Starr sells the absolute best stringed MIDI controller that I've ever played (and I've messed with several over the years). This is not your father's Casio synth guitar! It's a tool, not a status symbol - who cares what it looks like? And it's only useless to those who don't know how to use it.

Edited July 1, 2005 by lovekraft

[Guitarfrenzy]

I have played through a Roland GR-33 since they came out, and it has added so much to the band. I use it on songs like "Turn The Page", where I can nail the Saxophone parts, and even the Rhoads piano parts, people look at the stage like, "where's the sax player".. lol The organ sounds are great also, and in fact I used it on the song I wrote to show off the blue burst strat we did last year, with Bass played by the GR-33 also. You can hear it here Strat - Downtime. But mainly I use it for strings because you can really fill in a lot of spaces with it. I have a Roland Ready Strat and it does a good job, but I would love to have a RMC outfitted guitar, which I plan on putting in my next guitar, since it really triggers better they claim. The only triggering problem I have is when I use the Grand Piano sounds, which you have to be very careful with how you play, actually it's made my playing much cleaner, simply because you must learn to pick cleaner in order to use it. Saber is correct about the MIDI out, the GR-33 does have it, but like was said, it's a little more lag. It does only take the 13 pin input though, so basically it has a midi converter in it also, which in fact Roland does sell a standalone MIDI converter for the normal 13 pin guitar connections, not sure how good it works though.

[jnewman]

Then why not just play a midi keyboard that can also do that?

Well, how good are your keyboard chops? Most of us play guitar, not keyboards. Why do so many people feel so threatened by a guitar controller? Heck, Bela Fleck even has a MIDI banjo!

FWIW, Harvey Starr sells the absolute best stringed MIDI controller that I've ever played (and I've messed with several over the years). This is not your father's Casio synth guitar! It's a tool, not a status symbol - who cares what it looks like? And it's only useless to those who don't know how to use it.

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You have a point, but I still feel that MIDI guitars are something like saying "here's a trombone, only you play it like a guitar." This isn't really correct, because you won't get the nuances of trombone playing (or whatever other instrument you're pretending to be) - which, arguably, becomes less of an issue if you're just going for "synth" sound - and you ALSO won't get the nuances of the guitar playing you're actually doing. I don't feel threatened by a guitar controller, if you feel like you can get around the inherent problems and make it work for you, more power to you - but I won't be fighting with you over the last one at the shop because I just don't think that, at our present technology levels, they're worth it - a stringed instrument is far from the ideal interface for an idea like MIDI, and until things get a lot better than I've seen, I won't be seriously using one.

[Saber]

you ALSO won't get the nuances of the guitar playing you're actually doing.

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While you can't play harmonics (natural, pinched or otherwise) you wouldn't need those on a sax sound for example. But you can get great tracking of all of the other nuances like string bending, vibrato, hammer-ons and pull-offs. For example, I played this little sax solo over a backing track using a cheap outdated GR-09 synth. Imagine what you can achieve with recent technology.

GR-09 Sax Solo

[GregP]

Awesome! I would be happy with that cheap outdated synth.... I can't seem to get any decent sounds going with this MIDI guitar.

Wicked-sweet!

Greg

[jnewman]

Yeah, but see, that's a synthesizer for use with a real guitar, not a MIDI guitar . MIDI guitars have buttons you push for fretted notes (blech). I'd be a lot more willing to use a synthesizer with a real guitar than a MIDI guitar.

In MIDI you end up with a digital stream that works differently from the way I understand a synthesizer to work - you have actual values for note start time, note pitch, effects, etc. rather than just an audio signal that's digitally altered.

[GregP]

MIDI is just information. It can be generated by a "real" guitar, too, combined with the right technology. That would be my ideal-- a real guitar with MIDI control that has accurate tracking. It seems to me that some of the guitar synths can already output as MIDI data instead of as an audio stream.

The guitar synth doesn't just alter the sound of your guitar. It takes your notes, turns them into data, and then uses this data to trigger onboard sounds. The only difference with MIDI would be that instead of triggering onboard sounds you could trigger any MIDI-capable device, including sound modules stored on your computer; and, you could save the note information as MIDI so that you can change instruments later. (maybe a trombone would have sounded better than a sax. )

Greg

[Saber]

MIDI is just information.  It can be generated by a "real" guitar, too, combined with the right technology.  That would be my ideal-- a real guitar with MIDI control that has accurate tracking.  It seems to me that some of the guitar synths can already output as MIDI data instead of as an audio stream.

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I don't know how much of this is hype, but we're hearing a lot about the AXON which uses a new improved method of guitar-to-MIDI conversion.

[Gorecki]

MIDI is just information.  It can be generated by a "real" guitar, too, combined with the right technology.  That would be my ideal-- a real guitar with MIDI control that has accurate tracking.  It seems to me that some of the guitar synths can already output as MIDI data instead of as an audio stream.

←

I don't know how much of this is hype, but we're hearing a lot about the AXON which uses a new improved method of guitar-to-MIDI conversion.

←

The AXON is the best 13-pin tracking system on the market I've exprienced but for the cost (it is ONLY a converter you can't make sounds without another midi unit) is very expensive in contrast to a GR-33 comes fairly close if tweaked.

Edited July 8, 2005 by Gorecki

[GregP]

I don't mind lack of onboard sounds-- my computer is my MIDI device. Looks like a cool product.

Greg